Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:39:38 EDT
From: puzzled
Subject: SUB, ESSAY: The Writer, The Writing
Comments: To: the palace
[a bit of daffy duck, a tuck of literary luck, and thou beside me on the
bed of uneasy words, wafting across the digital bits, wading through the
cognitive fits, hoping against hope for a star to steer by, a star to
know by, a star on his brow...it's sort of an essay? tink]
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The Writer, The Writing
Copyright 1996 Mike Barker
A dash of chatter,
A dollop of emotion,
A nalysis most critical,
And a call to arms (or fingers, at least?)
1. From You To Me
Something goes on inside one person.
They produce some words.
Another person reads those words, reacts to them, and something happens
inside them.
Abstracted practically out of existence, that's communications. That's
writing and all the other exchanges between people.
I know some people are lucky enough to know where to draw the lines
around "proper" communications, "real" writing, and those other arenas
of discourse. After all, they know the "right" ways to do this magic
called communication--and people who wander off those tired,
well-trodden ruts are just wrong.
I have to congratulate these people, since I have real trouble figuring
out where the lines are.
My Japanese coworker laughed at my jitters over lunch and told me,
"Americans always have to talk. In Japan, when we like someone, we are
quiet."
Silence as communication?
A potter once clued me in to his work--look at the space, not the clay.
Absence as communication?
Every now and then we come to this point where we are bickering about
what kind of subjects are appropriate, who should be on the list, and so
forth.
We're climbing those stairs again?
In that case, let me stake my claim. I don't care what topic you write
about. I don't even care who is on the list.
But when you post, do your best. Think about your audience, think about
reaching them, about moving them, about making them want to read what
you have written.
Listen to the response. Really pay attention and try to understand what
happened, why people responded that way to your work.
Then try again.
That's enough. You don't have to be the compleat writer, capable of
knocking out novellas before breakfast and tombs of poetry over coffee.
(incidentally, tomes are probably a wordy tomb, wouldn't you say?)
Just do your best.
2. With Feelings?
Now let me roll back a bit to April First. (CK, relax, this isn't
really about you.) It's about me, about a piece of abuse that most men
on this list have experienced, and about not letting society off the
hook as easily as we forgive you.
I had trouble accepting what happened as simply a joke. The emotional
abuse involved in teaching people not to express their feelings should
never be a joke.
In our culture, our society, I'm supposed to shrug off a lot, laugh
despite any personal agony or anguish, and accept the emotional abuse of
denying my feelings. Turn off the hurting, be a man.
That's one of the handicaps that men face in America. We don't have
feelings, we don't get caught, we just take it. Old stoneface men,
dying of heart attacks from loneliness and encysted years of emotional
pain.
That's the stereotype that we're asked to invoke when we accept this
kind of "joke." Strong men, intellectuals, "cool people," and so forth,
none of us has feelings, none of us gets caught reaching out in
trust...and if someone does catch us, hey, wasn't that a good joke? You
really had me going...
If you're interested, Genderspeak by Suzette Haden Elgin, Ph. D.,
especially in Chapter 13 on Intimacy describes this pattern, analyzes
it, and provides some possible ways to begin to break the pattern. It
talks about the fear that people have of linguistic intimacy, of
expressing their feelings. (Incidentally, Dr. Elgin talks about men as
being the primary ones crippled in this way, but I think it is a fairly
common illness. Look at all the crutches being peddled to deal with it,
then tell me how rare it is.)
Just to quote a couple of lines, "Men are afraid that the women whose
good opinions they value the most will not respect them after linguistic
intimacy." ... "It's a rare man indeed in whom these fears aren't
reinforced by the memory of childhood incidents in which he _did_ show
emotion, and he _was_ made fun of, often by someone he had thought he
could trust. Most men have at least one adult memory of being mocked by
an adult woman for showing emotion..."
So the game, the social playlet that teaches us our roles, runs
something like:
Ask someone to trust you, to believe in you, to show that they care,
then trip them. Laugh at them laying on the ground and tell them it was
"just a joke."
That's funny?
Let me suggest that before anyone plays this kind of game, they should
consider whether their partner(s) in social intercourse is going to feel
as if anyone respects them in the morning...
A community lives in part on trust. We believe that the other person
isn't lying, isn't faking, isn't crying wolf! We take that chance and
reach out in trust.
Whenever someone breaks that trust, we've all lost.
I'm proud to say that I spent my Monday morning--my writing time that
was supposed to be spent doing a FAQ for April--I took that time and put
it first into writing a note to CK, then into trying to understand what
had happened. I spent part of the day forwarding messages to CK.
I went through the day feeling as if somehow I had failed, that once
again the fires had burnt out another part of the forest, leaving ashes
where once beauty reigned.
I cried. Middle aged, balding little man sitting in his office, crying
over some words on a terminal.
Am I supposed to abandon my feelings just because the message that
triggered them was a joke?
I refuse to give up my feelings. I refuse to stand back and ignore
pleas for help. I refuse to hesitate because some fire alarms and other
reports of trouble are fakes. Yank my chain, I'm going to respond.
I don't intend to stop reaching out. I hope--I pray!--that in the
future I won't hesitate to reach out when I think someone is hurting. I
want to care, I want to trust, and I hope that I won't stop and wonder
if I'm going to trip and fall again, if someone is just "pulling my
leg."
3. Here Comes Criticism, Literary or Not
Writing is a strange business, somewhere in borderlands between art and
craft, between reason and emotion, between heaven and hell.
Recently I realized that most of the flames, carping, and other comments
are simply revisiting well-trodden ground. In case you haven't noticed,
this is the academic field of literary criticism, replayed as our turf!
Allow me to summarize something from the writing side of the world. I'm
drawing on the article on criticism in "Literary Terms: A Dictionary" by
Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz. A bit long and dry, so I've imbedded some
twit bits for your bemusement.
Criticism, "the evaluations of literary works, including classification
by genre, analysis of structure, and judgment of value," often depends
on the basis used for the act of judgment. In our terms, comments,
flames, responses and other reactions to the writing posted on the list,
no matter what label or category such writing may be identified as,
assume and use various means of judging the work of the others.
The Moralistic approach--viewing art as an agent of human
development--tends to require "a moral vision of reality" buried in the
"good work." For us, this is represented in the flames or comments
which point out that the work doesn't match philosophical, religious, or
personal beliefs, and is therefore somehow problematical.
Impressionistic, or aesthetic, criticism relies more on the critic's
personal and subjective response. We have had responses that describe
how a piece touched someone else, telling of how someone suddenly
remembered something or otherwise responded.
The Biographical approach looks toward the facts and motives of the
author's life as illuminating the meaning and intent of the writing.
We've seen responses that dig into what kind of life you must have had
to be writing this way...that try somehow to turn your
age/hobbies/marital status/etc. into fundamental limitations or
explanatory dismissals of your writing.
Sociological or historical criticism looks at a work of art as a product
of social and historical mayonnaise...malaise...no, milieus. The artist
is merely a brush in the hand of grand socio-historical trends. We've
seen this type of response on occasion, with various peoples' casual
comments interpreted as reflections of the great struggles of our times.
The Psychological approach has two branches, one looking at the effect
of the author's unconscious mental activity during the creative process,
the other interpreting structure and character in psychoanalytic terms.
I think we've had both kinds of commentary here, with people working
backwards from writing products to presumptions about the author's
mental activities (or lack of same?) and doing some psychoanalysis of
the writings...
(does anyone else find it odd that these people just want to get to the
seat of your problems? I'll even grant that anal tics may be important
sometimes, but let's not insist that everything and everyone else is a
nail just because we've found a good hammer, okay?)
Probably enough said about the psychology of the arthur (freddian slip
intentional, it goes well with my yung lace overcoat...)
Archetypal criticism does the systematic analyses of universal motifs
and patterns, mything the work. From time to time someone comments on
the plots and plans underlying and tying humanity together.
The Formalists, ontological or New critics, are more interested in how
the work of art achieves its effects. The form and effect of the work
are considered relatively independently of the author. I suspect we all
have a leaning towards this type of criticism, largely due to the
generic educational background usually stressing this type of
commenting...
This is one list of the formal categories of literary criticism.
It is also close to a catalog of the various ways we have responded,
commented, and/or flamed each other about postings here on the list.
"...all critical activity ultimately reflects the individual's response
to a literary work..."
"On the internet, no one knows I'm a dog."
4. So What Am I Supposed To Do?
Do you really want to do something?
Build trust. Help people communicate, don't make them afraid of it.
Humor is an essential part of good communication, but don't do it by
tripping your partner--trip yourself if you need a fall person, okay?
Do you want a tough challenge?
Teach us that we can express our feelings, that it is safe to admit that
we hurt, that we care, that we are human. Show us that even when we trip
or stumble, there is still a caring community there that won't let us
fall, smashed and alone on the concrete. Show us that no one will laugh
at us--even though plenty will laugh with us.
I guarantee that if you take that challenge seriously, you'll be writing
for a long, long time.
And I think you'll be welcome, here in the sandbox.
Building castles in the minds, with the sands of time gently burnishing
the reputations of those workers...
Sounds like a place for a writer, wouldn't you say?
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This is the third or fourth attempt at writing this.
I may have upset some people by revisiting a recent event here on the
list. Hopefully they will realize that my viewpoint is that of the
person searching to understand his own weaknesses, his own
failings--not to rub salt in the wounds of others. I apologize in
advance to anyone who takes offense.
Apres nous...
tink